Am I “Allergic to Life”?

Not everyone is helped by restoring glutathione and methylation. I've been doing this since 2005, but got nowhere living in an environment with my primary trigger, mold. I still take glutathione in various ways daily as well as methylation supplements. Be aware that there are other major detoxification pathways in the body, such as acetylation, which is the one used for pesticides and other toxic chemicals, and this requires nutrients such as niacinamide and B1.

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Right, you have to do both - avoid the toxin and do methylation supps, as they both affect methylation. This is the thing that a lot of people don't seem to get - you will likely have to do a total program addressing all aspects that affect methylation, not just taking methylation supps and thinking it will fix everything.

You might get lucky and one aspect will be extremely helpful, but that doesn't occur for most people. So you have to do an overall assessment and treat all aspects:

1. any toxins still going in - get rid of the source of those
2. any ongoing infections - get rid of those
3. gut problems - address those
4. poorly operating methylation cycle - address that
5. still have metals despite killing gut bugs and addressing methylation (both of which will detox metals) - do further metal detox
6. you have a great deal of ongoing stress or past trauma still causing issues - address that
7. nutritional deficiencies - test for and supplement for those

I'm probably missing something, but you get the idea. All of these things affect methylation, therefore you have to do all of them to completely address methylation and get back in balance.

Thanks SO much for these excellent articles. I normally don't read much at a time, but felt "fairly captivated" as I read both of your articles back to back. Your articles reminded me of an experience I had several years ago, and which I posted about on the ProHealth board. Thought I'd paste my original post here, as it seems relevant to the discussion.

Thanks again; double thumbs up! --- Best, Wayne

Originally Posted This on 5/31/07

I’ve had extreme MCS/EI in the past but I’ve improved somewhat over time. I’ve wondered a lot as to how a person could be so sensitive to such small amounts of exposure. I had an experience about a year ago that gave me some insight (for myself).

I was in the waiting room of the chiropractor/naturopath I go to who also does cranial sacral therapy. Before I knew it, his wife was spraying some “spot remover” on the carpet in the hallway. At the same time she was musing “Hmmm, I just remembered that some people can be sensitive to things like this”.

Well, about the time I started to reel from it, the doctor came out and escorted me into his office. I told him I could still smell the chemicals and I was getting sicker by the moment and getting so dizzy I absolutely had to leave.

He persuaded me to go with him into a back room that was still clear. I was very reluctant to do so because I did not want to waste a cranial/sacral session at a time when I was feeling extremely ill. I’m glad I did however, because within seconds of him putting his hands on my head, my symptoms began to wane almost immediately. Most symptoms were gone within a minute. I could hardly believe it as an exposure such as that would normally take me at least hours to start recovering from and sometimes days to get back my equilibrium.

What I learned is that the exposures I experience seem to primarily affect me neurologically. And I’ve come to believe that so many of symptoms we with CFS/FM deal with are neurological symptoms. Dr. Jay Goldstein’s drug therapy seems to have been specifically developed to alter/modulate neurological responses.

More natural therapies such as the cranial/sacral I mentioned and some of the NAET experiences others have shared seem to also modulate neurological responses. It appears in most cases that these all seem to be palliative measures and have to be continued indefinitely to sustain any improvement we may experience. My goal is to try to correct what is making us have such extreme neurological responses in the first place. To that end, I am slowly starting the methylation cycle block therapy.

Regards, Wayne

P.S. I had an experience a couple of months ago where some cooking done in the house was bothering me on a particularly sensitive day for me. Hours and hours later when I no longer was smelling it at all in the house, I kept waking up in the night smelling it over and over again. Felt like another indication to me that this is primarily neurological, with "imprints" being able to linger around long after one removes themselves from the exposure.

@jenbooks I didn't say that application of the glutathione depletion hypothesis to real life treatment was simple, if that's what you mean. It's pretty tricky for most people, including myself. There is still much to learn.

Or are you saying that the glutathione depletion hypothesis is incorrect in regards to MCS and/or mold sensitivity?

My point was, assuming glutathione depletion hypothesis is correct, that there is already one all encompassing hypothesis that explains all the things in the article, which the article never mentioned.

So assuming it's correct, it gives you a framework of why things are the way they are, and how to proceed forward, instead of only understanding pieces but not the big picture, or wandering around randomly trying out things hoping they work. This is huge.

Not everyone is helped by restoring glutathione and methylation. I've been doing this since 2005, but got nowhere living in an environment with my primary trigger, mold. I still take glutathione in various ways daily as well as methylation supplements. Be aware that there are other major detoxification pathways in the body, such as acetylation, which is the one used for pesticides and other toxic chemicals, and this requires nutrients such as niacinamide and B1.

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Ben Lynch has two new videos where he talks about glutathione, which is relevent to this thread.

29 minute mark: don't supplement with glutatione if you're deficient in NAD as it will just make oxidized glutathione. If you're deficient in NAD, you may take a glutathione test and have the results come out ok, when you're actually deficient in glutathione. This is because the low NAD masks the deficiency.

1) Glutathione depletion is only one cause of inability to detoxify (or inadequate detox)
2) Methylation is such a basic function that you cannot necessarily predict from the few polymorphisms being studied, whether a person needs the basic methylation supplements that are so popular today, or whether they will react adversely. Methylating genes and viruses is both good and bad. For instance, you don't want to overmethylate your tumor suppressor genes
3) So much is yet to be learned, and when a doctor sells his own supplements I raise an eyebrow as to his objectivity
4) Lots of other pathways can be involved in sensitivity to chemicals or poor detox. Pon1 for pesticides, SOD inside the mitochondria, various liver pathways and many more.
In addition, chronic infections may be playing a role and once treated, detoxification might resume

I'm not sure about something: based on this article, Dr. Miller didn't seem to have any recommendation as to what can be done about MCS (granted, it's only one article, which cannot replace a doctor's visit, but I would think there might have been some hints in her wording as to whether she has any answers to the problem, if she does have any answers). If she is just trying to define the existance of mcs, ok, I guess that's something for the future of getting the disorder recognized by mainstream. I just wish the article had been clearer as to whether she does anything for it.

I have low grade mcs -- enough to have extreme empathy for those who have it worse than I do - and if I get frustrated at the lack of doctor interest in solving the problem, then I'm sure those who have it worse than I do must get frustrated as well. I went to an alternative MD once who discussed his awareness of the existence of the problem, but again, had no answers at all as to what to do about it, and I left his office completely frustrated.

I went to an alternative MD once who discussed his awareness of the existence of the problem, but again, had no answers at all as to what to do about it, and I left his office completely frustrated.

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Hi South,

I just ran across this 2 1/2 min. video a couple days ago as I was researching deep liver and gallbladder cleansing. This woman claims to have completely recovered from MCS, and now runs a business (Optimal Health Network) trying to help others do the same. I haven't had a chance to persue her website yet, but thought I'd at least post a link here while it's on my mind (never know how long that will last).

I'm not sure about something: based on this article, Dr. Miller didn't seem to have any recommendation as to what can be done about MCS (granted, it's only one article, which cannot replace a doctor's visit, but I would think there might have been some hints in her wording as to whether she has any answers to the problem, if she does have any answers). If she is just trying to define the existance of mcs, ok, I guess that's something for the future of getting the disorder recognized by mainstream. I just wish the article had been clearer as to whether she does anything for it.

I have low grade mcs -- enough to have extreme empathy for those who have it worse than I do - and if I get frustrated at the lack of doctor interest in solving the problem, then I'm sure those who have it worse than I do must get frustrated as well. I went to an alternative MD once who discussed his awareness of the existence of the problem, but again, had no answers at all as to what to do about it, and I left his office completely frustrated.

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She's not acting in the capacity of a physician, but a researcher trying to establish the validity of the condition. Were she to start offering solutions it would be very problematic--since she isn't treating patients. She just can't do that. If you want to see good research by an MD in a university setting, google Stephen Genuis (he's Canadian) and look at his treatments.

We have a lot in common. I'm going to PM you with some of the things you mentioned that really resonated with me. It's important for us to post when approaches that are not widely accepted by our community, but have such relevance for so many of us, are incredibly helpful and reveal so much about the disease. The fact that extreme mold avoidance has helped most people that have tried it with the cardinal symptom of PEM deserves a whole lot more attention than it has received.